Dwane Casey knew a disappointing performance like Wednesday’s in Boston was coming. All he can hope is that his Raptors learned from getting outworked and outplayed in a loss to dismal Boston.

Young centre Jonas Valanciunas, who had one of his worst outings of the season, was saying all of the right things at least Thursday.

“That was a great lesson for us,” Valanciunas said of getting out-rebounded 58-44 and losing 88-83 to the 14-26 Celtics.

A favourite Casey-ism is everyone in the NBA is there for a reason and they all get paid two times a month. He’s tried to make sure his group doesn’t get carried away by virtue of its place atop the Atlantic Division. He’s preached that the Raptors aren’t good enough to look past any other squad based on their record, no matter how poor.

Valanciunas said what we all saw, that maybe that, in fact, is what happened in Beantown.